


The Long Reign

by Baby_Spinach



Series: After the Goodbye [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Mild Gore, Pining, Post-Season/Series 04, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-19 19:49:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18977203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baby_Spinach/pseuds/Baby_Spinach
Summary: Now returned to Hell for good, Lucifer seeks diversion among familiar faces.





	The Long Reign

_“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”_

The bothersome former priest’s personal Hell is certainly fitting, if a little pompous. Standing a spectator’s distance away and hidden from sight, Lucifer watches the man’s torment unfold.

Kinley’s head lolls against the large wooden cross he is pinned to. The open wounds of his palms dribble with blood and pus against hefty iron nails. The blinding overhead sun roasts every inch of his exposed skin to an angry, cracked red.

Crowded around the base of the cross stands an expansive mob of cacophonous condemners, a rather common theme among the personal torments of Hell’s innumerable residents. They shout admonishments, taunts, and jeers.

“Murderer!”

“Charlatan!”

“Monster!”

Lucifer recognizes a few of them: Susan Ochoa, Oscar Rivas, David Ramirez. But he also finds a more intriguing face among the group: his very own.

He steps closer to properly appraise the projection of himself. The fake version of Lucifer Morningstar is virtually indistinguishable from the original, aside from an almost maniacally wicked expression plastered over his face. It’s certainly less restrained and dignified than Lucifer usually fancies himself to be.

Fake Lucifer’s voice booms out. The rest of the crowd immediately falls silent, as if a switch has been flipped.

“How’s it hanging there, Father?” Fake Lucifer calls to the crucified former priest.

Lucifer rolls his eyes. Surely he’s not _that_ corny.

Kinley’s blistered eyelids flutter as he struggles to focus on the figure below him. With some effort, his cracked lips and parched throat manage to form a rasping response.

“I… I did what was right. The sacrifices I made…”

Fake Lucifer laughs cruelly. “By all means, keep going. You now have an eternity to waste pointless justifications on.”

Kinley swallows drily. “I… regret… nothing.”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be here.” Fake Lucifer cocks his head. “Deep down, you know you deserve this. You could’ve found a way to expose me without the cost of innocent lives. But you were zealous and desperate, weren’t you? As long as you could fulfill your precious life’s purpose and be the great hero who vanquished the Devil, what did a little collateral damage matter?”

Lucifer smiles grimly to himself. Most humans are already prodigiously talented at self-flagellation. His demonic subjects’ talents are only truly needed for the worst of the worst.

But something stops him from leaving Kinley to his self-inflicted fate, at least for the moment. Instead, Lucifer snaps his fingers.

The condemning crowd, including Fake Lucifer, vanishes in an instant. The cross disappears as well. Kinley suddenly finds himself huddled on the ground, burns and wounds miraculously healed. Cool, overcast clouds obscure the blazing noon sun.

Lucifer reveals himself. Kinley’s initial confusion is replaced by suspicion and fear as soon as he lays eyes upon him.

“Anything I could get for you?” Lucifer says in a jovial tone. “A hot towel? Some salted peanuts, perhaps?”

Perhaps he _is_ that corny.

“What’s this, the next phase?” the man growls. He’s still got some spark in him, though likely not for much longer. His eyes are wild and his voice wavering.

“That would be up to you,” Lucifer says. “It’s your personal Hell, after all. Is that a no on the peanuts, then?”

“What are you? Another… projection?”

“The genuine article, Father. I thought I’d pop in for a bit, see how you were doing.”

Kinley takes a few seconds to process, his darting gaze manic. Then, he inexplicably begins to laugh.

“It worked,” he sputters between heaving gales tinged with hysteria. “Ha, it worked! I returned you back to Hell! I did it!” His shrill ravings echo out across the infinite expanse of his Room’s desert landscape.

Kinley’s laughter eventually subsides. He then looks skyward, a ludicrously pious expression on his face. “Yes, I’ve finally fulfilled my mission.”

Lucifer smiles, cold and mocking. There are few things more pitifully foolish than a zealot. “If you’re waiting for one of my siblings to sweep you away to the Silver City, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

Kinley’s expression falters, but he meets Lucifer’s eyes with a kind of brittle resolve. “I did what I had to. I did what was right.”

A corrosive anger infuses Lucifer’s body. His devil form ignites beneath his skin and itches for freedom. His fingers twitch, eager to wrap themselves around Kinley’s throat.

Neither witnessing this damned soul’s torment nor gloating about it has proven even remotely as satisfying as Lucifer had hoped. He almost hates the foolish, self-important, deluded fanatic in front of him.

But ultimately, Kinley is not the true source of his distress. Dr. Linda would have told him as much. Upon that realization, the scorching itch subsides.

“Perhaps one day, you’ll truly believe that,” Lucifer says.

He leaves. The blazing sun promptly re-emerges, along with the wooden cross and the condemning mob.

*

_“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”_

The work is just as Lucifer remembers it, no more and no less. Demons prostrate themselves before their king, eager for punishment, direction, and purpose. None of them will ever speak to him as an equal, much less dare to challenge him.

Chloe had once called him a homeless magician. Trixie had once called him a wussie. Lucifer allows himself a fond smile upon recall of such memories, despite the accompanying sting of longing that always follows.

Months or years pass. In a realm of everlasting twilight, it’s harder to keep track of such things.

*

On a featureless day like any other, the perpetual monotony of Lucifer’s reign is unexpectedly broken by the arrival of a notable soul. He descends from his throne to greet this new guest in person. Nothing but the best for his erstwhile frenemy.

He has already settled in by the time Lucifer gets there. His personal room of torment sees him stripped naked, crammed into a tiny metal cage suspended in total darkness. Lucifer unfolds his angelic wings, and their delicate iridescence affords the two of them a good amount of light.

“Well, well, Mr. Said-Out-Bitch,” Lucifer says, a glass of subpar liquor in his hand. “We must stop running into each other like this.”

“Hey, get me out of this thing!” is his only whimpered response.

Lucifer raises his eyebrows, but obliges. With a snap of his fingers, the man sprawls free atop the featureless dark surface of his Room, now wearing his signature manties for both modesty and old times’ sake.

“I must say, Mr. Said-Out-Bitch, I’m rather disappointed in you,” Lucifer chides. “I gave you more than enough to build a fresh start, and then you go and get yourself killed within, what, a year?”

“Year-and-a-half,” the man mutters in a petulant tone that poorly disguises his shame. He gets to his feet, shoulders hunched. “And my name’s Lee.”

Lucifer feels a sickening pang in his chest. So it's been eight months on Earth since he and Chloe…

_“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”_

“Where… where am I?” Lee finally asks into the widening silence.

“I think you know.”

He swallows hard. “So… you’re the real deal, huh? You weren’t lying when you--”

“I never lie. Now tell me, what foolish endeavor was it that prematurely ended your promising fresh start?”

Lee’s eyes shift everywhere except toward Lucifer’s hungry gaze. He fidgets, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

Lucifer quickly grows impatient. “Upon my departure, your regularly scheduled program resumes immediately. It’d be in your best interest to keep my attention, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Y-yes. I… well, I…”

“Out with it!” His sudden roar, tinged with a demonic rumble, knocks the man backwards a few steps.

Lucifer himself isn’t quite sure why he clings to Lee’s story, why the banal details of this petty thief’s escapades ignite such a ravenous curiosity within him. Their unlikely shared history may be the excuse, but it is certainly not the true reason. At the moment, however, Lucifer is in no mood to introspect.

Lee’s telling is rushed and jumbled, but the story is coherent enough to grasp. He’d paid off his debts as promised and responsibly poured the remainder into a few safe investments. The last thing he remembers is seeing an approaching police car, panicking out of habit, and sprinting straight into the path of an oncoming bus.

Lucifer snorts. “It’s a funny little world that Dad built, isn’t it? Even with such optimistic prospects, you kick the bucket before you get the chance to properly deal with that pesky residual guilt. Quite the cosmic joke.”

Sating his curiosity about Mr. Said-Out-Bitch’s demise hasn’t proven gratifying at all. Lucifer briefly wonders why he’d been so desperate to know about it in the first place. Still, the unfortunate man deserves a little something for indulging him.

“To return the favor, Mr. Said-Out-Bitch, I’ll let you in on a secret. Listen closely.”

Lee clearly has no desire to get any closer to the Devil than he already is, but he nods a little and holds his gaze this time. “What is it?”

Lucifer sips from his glass, silently derides the dreadful taste for about the thousandth time, and smiles.

“The doors aren’t locked around here. It’ll be much harder without the ability to do good or to make amends to those you’ve hurt, but it is still possible to make peace with yourself.”

“The hell does that mean? Hey, wait--”

Lucifer turns to leave, folding away his luminous wings.

“Best of luck, old friend.”

*

_“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”_

Demons crave and rely upon physical experience, hungrily receptive to all stimulus of the bodily senses both painful and pleasurable in nature. In Lucifer’s not-so-humble opinion, Dromos’ punishment is his best work yet.

The failed insurrectionist has been forced to wile away eternity in a small square room, blindingly lit on all sides by white fluorescents and furnished with only a simple acrylic stool bolted down at the center. No visitors, no victims, no sound, no sweet distraction of pain, no darkness to assist in dissociation or daydream.

When Lucifer finally deigns to visit, Dromos grovels shamelessly at his king’s feet.

“My lord,” the maddened demon snivels. His true form is not a pretty sight, but none of Hell’s subjects are. Dromos’ face resembles that of a severe burn victim, not far removed from Lucifer’s own Devil form. Yet while Lucifer’s eyes smolder with vivid hellfire, Dromos’ eyes are a dull, milky white.

“My king, I beg you to let me atone for my treachery. Use me, humiliate me, toy with me as you wish!”

Lucifer observes the broken creature before him and waits for the surge of sadistic vindication that never comes. Another dead end. His mouth twists bitterly.

“Get up, Dromos.”

He obeys at once, unspeakably grateful for Lucifer’s mere presence after eons of torturous isolation.

Lucifer tilts up Dromos’ chin with a single finger, then kisses him with all the passion he can muster. The demon melts into him, eagerly returning the intensity with shameless abandon.

Dromos tastes of charcoal and smoke. Lucifer can’t help but recall a softer pair of lips, a sweeter scent, a mournful pair of grieving blue eyes.

_“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”_

Lucifer breaks away from his touch-starved prisoner, all too soon for the latter’s liking, and holds him at arm’s length. Dromos hungrily strains forward against the iron grip, with little success.

“My… my lord?”

“Consider this a farewell gift,” Lucifer says coldly.

Having had a last, maddening taste of what he would never experience again, Dromos howls as his ruthless king abandons him anew, this time for good.

“I beg you, my lord, don’t leave me here! Please! PLEASE!” Even the demon’s desperate fists against his prison walls are utterly silent.

Lucifer is both his first and last visitor.

*

_“I love you. Please, don’t leave.”_

Lucifer misses her. He misses her so terribly that he wants to rip out his heart and crush it to bloody paste in his hands.

Denial and distraction have only granted him brief reprieves from the pain. Her pleading, heartbroken face, his last image of the earthly realm before his departure, relentlessly haunts his every thought.

There’s no sleep to be found here. No dreams. No respite from the aching, chasmic hole in his chest.

Perhaps someday, Lucifer will have the strength to visit her without temptation, to hold her in his arms and not forfeit his crown within moments of doing so. Perhaps someday, he'll have the strength to tolerate the agony of endless goodbyes and somehow not succumb to bitterness and anguish.

But until that distant time comes, he will continue to endure. Somehow.

_I love you, too._


End file.
